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Styx in Charlotte! This show was announced less than a month before the show date, and while I’d already gotten great seats in Cary (10 mins from my house!), I decided it would be fun to go to the Charlotte show, too. I took a half day at work on Tuesday and met my friends, Angela and Dixie at my apartment. Angela had been kind enough to offer to bring me to the Charlotte show with them, and how could I refuse?
The trip went smoothly until we got off of the highway. Road Runner Mobile Amphitheatre is a relatively new venue, and apparently even the latest GPS software can’t figure the area out. The lack of signage had us completely turned around. We were going down narrow one-way streets and encountering a lot of closed roads.
Finally we found a place to pull over near a gravel lot. There was a man standing outside of his car and Angela asked him for directions. It turned out that he was a government employee, and he offered to let us follow him all the way to the venue! It was really nice of him to do that for us. Thank you, unnamed government official!
We found parking, picked up our tickets and got in line before the gates even opened. It was a hot day, though not unbearable, and luckily we were able to stand in the shade! We waited for about a half hour or so, during which Janet came by to say hi. When the gates opened, we bypassed the seating area to visit Casey at the merchandise stand. For those who don’t know, Casey is Styx’s Merchandise Man Extraordinaire. I don’t know what his official title is, but it probably should be something like that.
We all purchased our own copy of a Styx concert program that Casey had put together. It was the first official one in 20 years, and best of all the proceeds from sales were going to charity! It also didn’t hurt that it contained a bunch of awesome photos of the boys. Angela, Dixie and I sat by the concessions area for a few minutes flipping through our programs before we made our way toward our seats.
When we finally got to our seats, my emotions were mixed. Angela and Dixie had gotten some second row seats but mine was in the aisle of 4th row. You see, there was a bit of a presale fiasco that caused us to have less than perfect seats. I technically wasn’t that far back, and the fact that it was an aisle seat was a plus, but what can I say? I’m a bit spoiled. It also seemed unlikely that I was going to have the opportunity to move up — the security guards were putting wrist bands on the front row patrons and there was a guard stationed at the edge of each row to prevent people from passing.
Of course this did not make me happy. But I kept reminding myself that I had front row center the following night, and that this show, if nothing else, would serve as a good warm-up 
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| ForeignerGowanKansasRoad Runner Mobile AmphitheatreStyxTodd Sucherman |